


Touch Starved

by TinyDemonWriter



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast), The Adventure Zone Amnesty
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, At the end anyway, Fluff, M/M, hahahaaa, i guess?, i lowkey projected onto ned its fine, im fine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 03:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18984211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyDemonWriter/pseuds/TinyDemonWriter
Summary: Ned used to believe in a world of light and hope and love.Now, he's just empty.





	Touch Starved

When Ned was a kid, he got affection from everyone. His friends, his family, the world. It seemed to him as though the world was full of light and love and hugs and handholding and touches. But one day in second grade (or maybe it was third... it’s been so long now...) he hugs a boy and he realizes. _Oh, I love him_. And so he blurts it out.

The boy in his arms freezes for a moment before letting out a laugh and a _really?_ and then never hugs Ned again.

The next time it was summer, before middle school at some point and a boy is holding his hand, doing his nails, and like before he realizes again. And, because he never learns, he blurts it out again.

Only, it's so much worse this time.

The boy drops his hand and runs away and Ned thought he was wrong, loving people like he does. Because he's too weird and too mean and too loud and too hyper and is just too much.

So maybe the boy was right to run away from Ned, before it got to be too much. Like it always does with Ned.

But if it had just stopped there Ned would have bounced back and been fine. It's not the first time someone hasn't loved him back, and it won't be the last, either.

But it didn't.

Kids can be so cruel sometimes. So quick to turn on others if it means gaining approval from the people they like.

And so it becomes a thing. _Don't touch Ned_ , the kids whisper in the halls, in the bathrooms, in the classrooms, on the bus. _Don't touch Ned cuz then he’ll fall in love with you, and no one wants that_.

And for a time it didn't matter. His parents, his kind loving parents, they dote on him, holding hands as they walk down the street, running their hands through his hair, offering high fives for every accomplishment.

But one day they're just not there anymore.

At the time he had taken it to mean that the kids were right, that his love was too much, even for his parents.

(That wasn't the case of course. A hit and run, he learns later. A drunk driver that didn't stick around to see if the people he hit made it out alive.)

(He never drinks and drives, and only rarely drinks. He won't be like them, refuses to be that kind of person.)

He's just a kid, he can't live by himself, he has to live with an adult. So, he goes and lives with a foster parent.

She isn't cruel by any means, but she isn't kind either. She has so many foster children and not enough money and so she's always out working.

And the kids, well the kids have already heard the rumors. And so they avoid Ned.

And Ned, whose world used to be so full of light and wonder, goes dark. Even as he falls in love over and over and over again, proving it's not just a touch thing, he doesn’t get that same love in return.

When he moves to a new town with a new foster parent, he has become so accustomed to being untouched that he doesn't know how to initiate it anymore. Sixteen and he's forgotten the feeling of hands in his, an arm around the shoulder, a hug.

He’s becomes so accustomed to being ignored that it isn't a surprise when the family he's with turns from him again, it's just expected.

(Looking back, he knows he was difficult. That he stayed in his room and kept himself away from the family he was forced to live with. He was a coward, didn't want his worst fears coming back again. Still, he can't help but wonder where he would be if they had even tried to reach out.)

So he longs for someone to pay attention to him, to love him as he loves others, to brush up against him without recoiling or mocking him.

Perhaps that is the reason he chose to start stealing things.

It starts small, items from his teachers desk, from his crushes backpack, from his foster parents’ office.

But like most things, he falls in love with it.

And maybe it can’t love him back, but that’s okay. At least it’s not his fault then.

And maybe it’s not the same rush of warmth he feels when someone touches his shoulder or high fives him, but it’s better than the cold emptiness that had replaced the light he used to see in the world.

~~~

It’s quiet, he learns, when you live on your own. Eighteen and no desire to go to college has landed him here, in this little city far from the places he wonders were ever really home.

And far from the record he had managed to get while stealing things from various people. Semantics.

Still, it is far quieter than he was anticipating and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

He had isolated himself from his foster family, hidden in his room all the time, and thought that he knew the silence of the lonely then. But you never really recognize the background noise until it’s gone.

He closes the door to his bedroom, and tries to fall asleep in the eerie silence.

~~~

In comparison to his apartment, his heists feel like a cacophony of sounds and movement. An explosion of feeling. Adrenaline, the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, laughter, the high that comes with success. Feet running on pavement, the splashes of puddles of liquids best left unnamed. The pure panic that follows when you’re caught.

The life of a thief is far more exciting than the life of a man who hasn’t felt human connection in years.

So Ned throws himself into this new life, one he had never thought he would find himself in as a child, and he doesn’t look back.

~~~

He’s back from stealing a knife, a jewel, a fridge (don’t ask), groceries for the week, money, a fan from some old set in Hollywood. It doesn’t matter what he’s coming back from, because over the years, the hotels are starting to feel the same.

Quiet. Empty. Lonely.

So, so cold. It’s odd, how the warmth of people seeps into every crevice of a home. Odd how you never realize it until you’re not near it anymore.

He doesn’t want to think about this, so he turns the heater on blast, regardless of the fact that it’s currently summer.

~~~

He’s stealing a sweater (jumper, he thinks to himself, would be more accurate) from Madonna in London when he hears the bells ringing, signalling the fact that it’s midnight.

Ned’s turning twenty one today. He had forgotten that. He looks down at the sweater in his hand and sighs. He doesn’t even need this, does he?

He drops it, turns around, and leaves.

By the time he makes it back to the hotel of the day/week/month/whatever/ he’s drunk for the first time.

When he wakes up alone and hungover, he hates himself a little more. Never again. Ned knows he’s a bad person, but he doesn’t want to do that, doesn’t want to be like them ever again.

~~~

(Over the next five years, he gets drunk a total of three other times.)

(The first time is the anniversary of his parents death. He’s back in the states this time and chooses to buy his liquor instead. It would feel wrong, stealing it. Which sounds weird but well.)

(Once more he wakes up loathing himself, and wonders why he thought drinking would make him feel better. It didn’t the first time)

(The second time is actually an accident. Ned was on a honeypot mission, get in, get close by flirting, grab the item, get out. He’s terrible at these, he doesn’t know how to be casually in someone’s space, but he’s desperate. The alcohol is stronger than he was anticipating.)

(The third time, he had just hooked up with someone at their place. He can’t recall how, exactly, they got in this situation, but he has just had sex with a very pretty man. He looks down at the sleeping person beside him and leaves, gets back to his place, and gets black out drunk)

(Finally, after that, he stops drinking to get drunk. He never really enjoyed it anyway)

~~~

Ned learns, over time, how to fill the quiet spaces with noise again.

He learns to sing in the shower, to dance while making food, something else he has fallen in love with. Another thing to get him through the spaces between stealing, between feeling again.

He learns to laugh again, even if it’s all by his lonesome. He laughs at the animals outside whatever shitty hotel he’s at. He laughs at bad TV shows and sitcoms and conversations he remembers randomly.

Ned learns that not every place has to be quiet. That he can talk to this person on the street if they have this look on their face, that this person will gladly converse with him and won’t notice the fact that he’s robbing them at the same time.

He goes back to other people’s places sometimes, and he learns that he can be very, very loud when things go well.

(He always, always leaves after everything is done and his partner is asleep. One thing he has not learned is how to touch. He’s beginning to doubt he ever knew how.)

Ned is learning how to put himself back together again, even if he doesn’t know how to let others.

Even if he’s too scared to ask.

~~~

When he’s thirty, Ned thinks he’s happy. At the very least, he’s the happiest he’s been in a while.

He doesn’t have the camaraderie most men his age have. No family, no friends, nothing but a string of one night stands. The closest he’s had to a “relationship” was a man he had sex with everyday for a week once.

Then the cops showed up at the mans door and he had to dip.

Still, he thinks he’s happy.

He’s gotten used to the quiet spaces, filling them and leaving them in turn. He’s gotten used to his only form of love and affection coming from strangers on the street.

But more than that though, he’s learned to enjoy those moments, and has gotten very very good at it, if he says so himself.

So maybe things aren’t perfect, but Ned doesn’t need perfect. Ned has realized that perfect doesn’t exist, and if it does it’s not for people like him.

Ned goes on believing he’s happy, ignoring the gaping void in his chest, for another three years.

~~~

He’s thirty three when his world explodes into color and feeling once more.

~~~

Okay actually he’s just being dramatic. When he looks back on it he can explain it as such, but really the process is a gradual change.

It starts with a mixup, a meeting that shouldn’t have happened. Two people on one job.

They’re meeting, stealing the same thing in, funnily enough, almost the exact same way, but they don’t have time to reflect on it. The cops are there and then they’re running.

They’re pressed up to the side of a hill and Ned is living for the heady rush of adrenaline that comes with nearly getting caught. The man next to him “Bob” takes off his his mask and Ned sees the hottest man he’s laid eyes on in a while.

For a bit, they just sit there in silence, waiting for the cops to leave. Then Boyd turns to him and introduces himself, and offers Ned a hand.

At the time, Ned didn’t think anything of it, was too busy riding the feeling of _excitementpanicfun_ that came with the job. But later, after giving a name, and being called on his bullshit, he realizes that for the first time in a long time, someone had touched him outside of hookups.

And that’s when his world explodes.

~~~

It isn’t easy, not at first. Boyd is so casual, so carefree with his touches, in a way that Ned hasn’t been in so long.

It takes him a while before he stops jumping anytime Boyd lays a hand on him. It takes him a while before he becomes accustomed to an arm draped around his shoulders, snaked around his waist, behind his chair.

But, day after day, successful mission after successful mission, he grows used to it.

(Sometimes they make out after a success. Sometimes there’s sex involved. He doesn’t stay in the same bed after these sessions, or whatever you’d call them, but he does stop his other one night stands. He doesn’t know why.)

~~(Yes he does.)~~

~~~

He still doesn’t know how to initiate contact outside of sex. He’s grown used to receiving it, but he doesn’t know how hug someone or hold someone’s hands.

Over the years he’s hardened himself, because he was tired.

How often can you offer something and receive scorn or hatred in return, before you stop offering it?

How long does it take to forget how to offer something, after you’ve stopped?

~~~

Sometimes, in the dark, where it’s quiet but never silent, he finds himself talking to Boyd.

He doesn’t feel the need to fill this quiet as much as he used to, but sometimes he wants to talk to Boyd, and sometimes he wants to listen in return.

It’s on these nights that the story comes out, over the over the course of many nights and heists and months and scattered all around the story.

On these nights, where they’re on the couch just talking, Boyd is a quiet presence at his side. He offers Ned a comfort he hasn’t felt in so long, holding him and stroking his hands through Ned’s hair and Ned sighs.

He thinks maybe this is happiness, and he ignores the feeling in his gut that demands moremoremore. This is enough, it’s more than he’s received in so long so it has to be enough.

~~~

He’s thirty four when it happens and he doesn’t even understand the significance of it until later, when Boyd is asleep, and Ned is supposed to be as well.

They had another success. He and Boyd were in possession of a fucking oscar. This was the best thing that’s happened to him in so long.

He was so happy that when they were in the clear he wrapped his arms around Boyd and held on tight. Boyd had stiffened for just a moment, before crushing Ned in his arms.

Looking over at Boyd he smiles as he thinks, _oh, maybe I can learn how to do that again_.

~~~

He’s thirty five and he’s gotten better at affection, hugging and arms brushing together. He still struggles with it when it comes to strangers, but this is Boyd. Boyd who means so much to him. Boyd who he-

 _Oh_ , Ned thinks once more. He and Boyd are on the couch, sharing a blanket. Ned’s hands are in Boyd’s hair, playing with it when he realizes. He’s in love.

And he’s always fallen in love so easily, but this, this is different.

It’s stronger, for one. He’s seen the good and the bad of Boyd and he loves all of it. Accepts all of it. Boyd, this young man who has helped him in more ways than he can ever know. Of course, _of course_ Ned loves him. How can he not?

And it’s like he’s a child again, and he blurts it out.

For a moment everything is silent, and Ned goes to retract his hands. But Boyd turns around in his lap, straddling him, and kisses him fiercely, and Ned melts.

Because for as much as Ned struggles with the nonverbal communication of love, that’s Boyd’s best language. And Ned knows, with this kiss, that his love has been returned tenfold. And he knows, within his heart of hearts, that he’s truly, irrevocably, happy.

**Author's Note:**

> so this came, actually, from a discussion with [lesbianminerva](https://lesbianminerva.tumblr.com/) (who you should totally follow, btw) and uh... here we are like 2.5k later... wild
> 
> if you like this and wanna see more, feel free to follow me on [tumblr](https://tinydemondragon.tumblr.com/)! i give updates and such on my writing there!


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